The Truth About Red Meat!

Category: Blog

Holla if you love a good juicy burger and chips!! I for one am a huge fan and it’s nice to be able to make your own “healthy” burger and chips option, in the comforts of your own home.

Now, I’m not going to take full credit for this myself, because I did get some inspo from a random youtube video. However, all that matters is that I’m sharing this with you guys, so that you can also get some inspo and cook a delicious burger and chips with good quality ingredients.

Fortunately, Ireland produces some of the BEST quality beef, so we’d be only mad not to take advantage of it. Now, I do understand there is a fear that overconsumption of meat is leading to environmental issues, but as always, moderation is key.

The benefits of red meat are two-fold. Firstly, it is high in iron, which is vital to carry oxygen to the muscle tissues, organs and cells. Essentially, iron deficiency can be detrimental to health, so it’s really important that you’re getting enough through your diet. Iron supplements are of course an option, but they’re not the most pleasant supplements to take, with some causing constipation and nausea. Therefore, if you’re a happy meat eater, red meat is your best bet.

Another plus is that it’s really high in protein. Seen as we’re all gone protein mad, I’m sure you can agree this will be it’s best selling point. Did you know a fillet of steak has approximately 50g of protein :O. I don’t know about you, but that alone wins me over.

The downside? Sure, there’s a downside to over-consumption of all foods, but does that mean you should avoid them completely? Course not!!! Once of the main things to consider when it comes to beef is that it’s high in saturated fat. Saturated fat has gotten a bad rap for contributing to increased cholesterol levels (specifically LDL cholesterol i.e. the “bad” cholesterol). However, what popular newspapers articles and TV documentaries fail to tell you is that it’s the bigger picture that really matters, not the consumption of any ONE food.

Now, let’s consider, person 2, who is quite active and who’s diet consists predominately of wholegrains and they look after their health 80% of the time. They currently have a healthy body weight.

Considering both their diet and lifestyle factors, do you think one to two portions of beef a week is going to impact their health drastically? Well, for one, person 1 could probably do with overhauling their overall diet and lifestyle, so having one portion of beef each week is the least of their worries. Yes, you could argue, it would help to remove the beef burger, but there are bigger problems there than the beef burger. Person 2, on the other hand, is leading a pretty healthy lifestyle and their diet is good, so will that one beef burger each week negatively impact their health, probably not!

Remember, context is key! As a society, we need to stop honing in on one thing and we need to understand that our collective actions over time, make the most impact, not one single action! With all that said, I’ve included the recipe and the calories for my delicious home-made burger and chips recipe below. I hope you enjoy it just as much as I did creating it. Be sure to tag me on social media if you do re-create it!!

Whether you’re involved in strength, endurance or skill based training, how you fuel your body around training, will ultimately affect your performance and recovery.

Before we delve into the importance of nutrition around training, it’s important to note, that this is only one piece of the puzzle. You must first analyse the entirety of your diet, taking into consideration, daily and weekly energy requirements to ensure they are sufficient to meet the expectations of your training, recovery, performance and body composition goals. There is no point focusing solely on fueling around training, if your daily calorie intake is below that recommended to meet your goals. Therefore, this article is intended to add to an already well rounded diet.

Exercise:

Firstly, you must consider the intensity of the exercise you’re about to perform (i.e. high, moderate or low intensity). You must then consider the duration of the exercise bout i.e 30 minutes, 1 hour or more. The duration and intensity will ultimately determine the type and amount of fuel you will require.

During low intensity exercise, our bodies rely on fat for fuel. However, as the exercise intensity increases, carbohydrates become the predominant fuel source. So, this means we should only perform low intensity right? Absolutely not, high intensity exercise has been shown to elicit fat oxidation for up to 48 hours after the exercise bout, plus, has been shown to increase fitness levels by up to (……% more than endurance training).

Fuel before training:

When performing high intensity exercise, there’s an increased reliance on carbohydrates, so by increasing your intake of carbohydrates, exercise performance is enhanced. Research has shown that carbohydrate intakes of ~30% of total daily carbohydrate intakes is optimal, however this will vary depending on the duration, intensity and type of exercise being performed.

When performing low intensity exercise, research has shown that lower carbohydrate availability can augment training adaptations and can result in increases in fat oxidation (fat burning). Therefore, it’s suggested to perform low intensity exercise in the fasted state to optimize these adaptations and metabolic responses to such training protocols.

Protein:

Protein intakes should be approx. 20 g before and after training. This is to ensure muscle growth and recovery and to prevent muscle breakdown.

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